Principe
by Epic F. Awesomesauce
Summary: Romano is a servant working in the palace, trying to raise up enough money for his brother to move to this much richer kingdom. Antonio is the Principe, who has taken a liking to Romano... but is it because of Romano's servant-ing abilities, or because of something else... (Heh heh, suck at summaries. Anyways, contains slash, obliviously [ my version of obviously] and all that.) C:
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

When I was about sixteen, my brother and I finally raised up enough money for just one of us to travel from our poor kingdom to the richer kingdom of Supein. It had taken us around five years to get enough money, and that was even with all the money our parents had saved up for at least ten years before us. Does that tell you how much fucking money it costs just to get from one fucking kingdom to another?

But, anyways. The day we finally saved up enough money for just one of us to get a pass and then be able to survive for a while in the other kingdom came, and we had to decide who would go. In the end, I was picked, because I could take care of myself just the tiniest bit better than my little brother, Feliciano, could in a whole other kingdom. And so, I bought a pass that enabled me to go to Supein, and left my brother behind.

It took me two weeks to make it to the main city of Supein, and another two to find a decent job as a serving boy in a rich house. Three months after that, I was their best servant, and they let me serve the prince of Supein, Antonio, when he came to visit, and two weeks after that, the palace hired me to be one of their butlers.

And now, here I am, six months after arriving in this fucking kingdom of fucking Supein, living as the prince's personal butler. My job is to wash his clothes, clean his room, draw water for his baths, cook his food, and any other task they can think up, including taking out his fucking shit-aka, chamber pots.

Oh, and there's just one more problem with this job...

I'm in the kitchen helping with after dinner clean up when one of the serving bells- little bells attached by string to a handle in a room-rings.  
"Romano! It's Prince Antoniono!" some random asshole tells me.

"Fuck off!" I yell back at him. The one good thing about being Principe's favorite is that I can call everyone else whatever I want whenever I want, and they can't do anything about it.

I walk through the kitchen and to the servants' stairs, swearing under my breath as I go. Who does this Principe think he is anyways, that he can just make me serve him all the time? I stomped loudly up the stairs, enjoying the looks of the other servants running up and down them. Another thing I can do is be as loud and as noisy as I want and no one can do anything about it because Principe liked me.

I knock on Principe's door, putting on my polite voice so that I can say, "Sir? Did you need something?"

The door opens almost immediately to reveal the Principe of this kingdom, a pretty handsome guy with dark brown hair, bright green eyes, and a rather pretty face-I say pretty so that, if Principe ever learns how to read minds, he will know that I don't think of him as handsome, but as pretty, which somehow proves an imaginary point of mine.

"Romano?" he asks nicely, smiling. "Did I call you?"

My smile turns visibly forced. "Yes, you did." I tell him. "I would like to know why. Sir," I add as an afterthought.

"Oh, I don't remember." he says happily. "Here," He hands me a gold piece. "Go treat yourself to something nice." He smiles again, then closes the door. I stand there for a moment, waiting for... something.

The door pops open again and Principe Antonio is there. "Ah, Romano, I almost forgot! Can you bring me up a basket of tomatoes?" he asks happily.

I roll my eyes. "Yeah, sure, be right up." I mutter, then turn and walk back down the servants' stairs. I order a basket of tomatoes in the kitchen, waiting impatiently as some other, lowly servant brings it to me, then stomp back up the stairs and to Principe's bedroom, carrying the goddamn heavy basket of ripe red fruits. I don't understand why he can't go and get his own goddamn tomatoes. Last time I checked, it's not that hard. I mean, I'm doing it right now, so he should be able to do it as well, right?

I knock on the door and wait, hoping my aura looks as pissed off as I want it to look. When he opens the door I shove the basket of tomatoes at him grumpily. "Here you go. Was there anything else you wanted?" I give him a look that says You'd better not have something else you want me to do but he ignores it.

"Could you go get me some more blankets? It's gotten cold in here all of a sudden."

I glare balefully at him before turning away down the corridor to the closet that's right down the hall and pull out a huge armful of blankets, then walk back to his room, knock on the door, and half throw them at him when he opens it. He staggers back into his room and puts them somewhere that'd better be on the bed or else I will kill him.

"Anything. Else?" I ask through gritted teeth.

He ignores the subtle hints I'm giving him. "Can you please bring me a jug of water?" he asks sweetly.

I growl softly in my throat, then smile evilly at him and say, "Of course." in a faux-sweet voice. He smiles after me as I walk back to the servants' stairs to get some goddamn water for his goddamn highness. I'll show him some goddamn high-ness when I shove him out the window of his bedroom.

"Hey! You, random servant! Get me a pitcher of water, pronto!"

The servant turned and sneered at me. This one hasn't learned yet. "Get your own goddamn water, Romano." he says in a heavy accent. "Just because you're fucking around with Prince Antonio doesn't mean you're no longer a servant."

I ignore the "fucking around" comment and let my frown slowly morph into a teary-eyed expression based on my brother's face. "Oh, Prince Antonio, there's a servant who's being very mean to me!" I say tearily. "I think you should fire him."

The servant blanches. "You-you wouldn't."

I smirk at him. "I would. One pitcher of water. And you'd better be quick, or else they'll be a vacancy in the castle staff soon." The servant scurries away to bring me a pitcher of water. As soon as he's out of sight, I let the smirk fall from my face. What did he mean, "just because I'm fucking around" with Principe? Is that what everyone thinks? I'm fucking around with that dickhole? Not fucking likely. Even if I did swing that way, I wouldn't go for someone so absolutely out of my league. I'm not stupid.

The servant comes back, bowing as he hands me the water. I smirk appreciatively. This one knows how to puff up a guy's ego. Too bad he'll still be gone by the month's end because of that "fucking around" comment. It was really rude, and that's a quality that just can't be in a palace servant.

I walk all the way back up those servant stairs, cursing Principe to hell for making me do this for, like, the gazillionth time this hour, then knock on his door sharply, hoping he can tell just from that that I don't want him to ask me to do anything else.

He opens the door, sweetly takes the pitcher, and asks me if I can get him a loaf of bread. My hands clench into fists and I stare at the floor for a while so that I won't attack him, then say, through gritted teeth, that I would like a tip for doing all of this. He smiles sweetly at me and tells me he'll give me a gold coin when I've done everything he asks of me. I barely resist flipping him off, but he's already given me two gold coins tonight, and that's moved me quite a bit along on my quest to bring Feliciano, my baby brother, to Supein, so I'll just have to leave it at that.

"Fine then," I say tightly. "One gold coin." He smiles at me and I turn away quickly, feeling a blush rise in my cheeks. It's that stupid servants comment from earlier that's making me feel all warm, I tell myself. I'll complain to Principe tonight sometime. But for some reason, the blushing won't stop.

**A/N Wow, so Roma turned into a fucking jerk... well, not surprising, considering I'm not exactly Feli, but still. I think he'll get better as the story progresses... you know, he'll become a bit cuter and stuff, instead of just evil. So, yeah, and please review, because I love reading reviews, especially funny/weird ones, and I'll most likely reply to all of them, unless someone leaves forty-seven thousand, but yeah, ENJOY! C: C:**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

The next day, it gets worse. During breakfast, Principe requests that I serve him his food. Face burning, I comply, shooting him looks that hopefully get the message across: there'd better be a copper coin, at the very least, waiting for me tonight. All he does is just smile back at me, like some tomato-loving bastard.

As if that's not enough, he insists on doing the same thing during lunch and dinner, and then repeats last night almost to the dot, minus the blankets and pillows, another thing he asked for last night. And, he also insists on making me get them all one at a time. I'm not actually sure if I could carry both a large basket of tomatoes and a pitcher of water up the steep servants' stairs, but it doesn't matter, it's the thought that counts! Not that that disgusting idiot has any thoughts in that thick skull of his.

Honestly, the only good thing that came of last night was that that servant who claimed that Principe and I were fucking around-ew-was fired after I complained to Principe about him, and he set an example for all the other servants: don't accuse Principe and I of doing anything to my face, or you will be gone before the day is up. Now everyone's afraid to look me in the eye. Or look at me at all. They all scurry around and get me what I want when I order them to, and I have to do the hard part, bringing it up to Principe's room and somehow survive his empty-headed, idiotic smile. Honestly, I think they're better off than I am.

"Why are you making me do this?" I snap at Principe as I hand him the basket of tomatoes. He blinks at me, smiling stupidly, not understanding what I mean. "I mean, why can't you ask some other servant to bring you tomatoes? And what are you doing with them in there?" An awful thought crosses my mind. "You're not... doing anything... weird in there, are you?" An image of Spain naked and covered in tomato juice jumps into my mind, and I quickly kill it.

He shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, not meeting my eyes. "Noo..." he says slowly. I stare at him, eyes narrowed suspiciously. He stares back, eyes wide and guilty.

Finally, I shrug. "Whatever. You can keep your little secret, but I will find out what it is eventually, and you will be sorry you ever kept it from me in the first place." I stomp down the hall towards the servants' stairs, hoping that he won't remember...

"Romano!" he calls after me. "Can you bring me up some sugar?"

I growl low in my throat, then call back sweetly, "Of course, Principe! I hope you die in your sleep!" I add under my breath.

_"Romano, come play with me!" my brother, Feliciano, called to me as he played in the garden._

_ "Shut up, you stupid bastard!" When we were little, I believed that, because I was a year older than my little brother, I was much cooler than he was and could treat him however I felt like treating him at the time._

_ "Ve, but Romano, it's so fun to pick vegetables! Look at the potatoes! When I grow up, I want to marry a guy who loves potatoes!"_

_ "You're a boy, Feli! Boys don't marry boys!"_

_ Feli ignored me, instead turning to look thoughtfully at me. "You will marry a guy who likes tomatoes!" he cries, pointing a chubby finger at me and smiling angelically._

_ "I'll marry a girl who likes tomatoes-wait, what? Why tomatoes?" I asked, confused._

_ "Because, everyone thinks it's a vegetable, but it's a fruit!" he cried happily, giggling like a stupid bastard._

_ "What does that have to do with anything?" I wondered._

_ Feli opened his mouth to speak and-_

-I wake up.

I look around the bedroom I no longer share with other servants after complaining to Principe that I couldn't sleep with all the other people breathing in the room. That was a lie, the other people breathing helped me sleep, but I wanted a room to myself for the first time, and Principe got it for me.

"He's nice," I murmur to myself. It takes a while for what I said to sink in, and when I do, I nearly throw myself out the window then and there. "He's not nice!" I correct. "He's a tomato-loving bastard, and-" suddenly the dream comes back to me like some kicked puppy who still loves his master. (Puppy!) Feli had said that I would fall in love with a... tomato... loving... guy... just like Principe! I choked on my own breath as it caught in my throat, and spent a good five minutes coughing into my pillow. When I'm finally done, I'm absolutely certain that my face is tomato- damn that fucking fruit-red, and not just because of the coughing fit I just had.

"I hope you weren't right, Feli, you bastard." I mutter as I lay back down on my pillow, trying in vain to go back to sleep.

I'm woken up bright and early by the morning bell that wakes up all of the servants, even me. I thought about asking Principe for a room far away from the morning bell, but then I figured he'd probably put me in a room right next to his, and that's just... ew, no. Never ever. I feel my face heat up at the thought of sleeping in the room next to Principe's, even though it's not weird to sleep next to a guy. I mean, I slept with five other guys in this room once! ...Until I had Principe move them elsewhere. Really, sometimes I wonder who exactly is the servant in this equation? Me or him?

I drag myself down to the kitchen, then survey the other servants to find one to yell at, and one to have do my share of work along with his or her own. I pick a new servant-the replacement of that one-to do all my work, and begin yelling at an unfortunate stable boy who just walked in, looking for some apples for the horses. He stands there, miserable, and takes it all like a man, which I admire, and then when I'm done, he leaves quietly with his apples and the kitchen is silent. I sit down in a chair next to the fire, keeping out of the way of people cooking there-not because I'm nice or anything, but because I don't wanna get burned by anything- and feel warm in front of the fire. I'm just getting ready to fall asleep when someone breaks through the fug that is my brain:

"ROMANO! Prince Antonio wants you in his room ASAP!" I groan, open my eyes, and glare at the servant who brought me the message. He hold his hands up in front of him like a shield. "Hey, don't hate the messenger," he tells me. "I'm just repeating what he said." I sigh, then get to my feet. I walk up the god awful servants' stairs, mutter under my breath how they lead up to hell, then down the hall and to Principe's room. I knock on the door, not even bothering with a polite, "Sir?" like I usually do.

He opens the door immediately, grinning. I notice with a blush that he's not wearing a shirt. "Romano!" he cries happily. "I need your opinion on something very important!

"Wh-what?" I stammered, absolutely NOT looking at his bare skin.

"Can you please tell me which of these shirts look better on me?" he asks, opening the door wider so that I can step in. I stand, paralyzed for a moment, in the doorway before I finally mentally slap myself and walk inside, brushing past him and shivering as our skin touches. Walking by him, he seems so much taller than I thought he was. Sure, it's really only a couple inches, but a couple inches sure can seem like a lot when you're alone with that couple inches in his bedroom, and he's not wearing a shirt!

Fuck... I was just calling the Prince of our kingdom "a couple inches". I think there's something wrong with me.

"Which shirts?" I ask, hoping my voice doesn't tremble as noticeably as it seemed to me.

He gives me a happy grin. "These twelve!" he says, pointing to a huge pile of shirt lying on his bed. I stare from him to the shirts, then back again, and then once more. And then once more for good like.

"Twelve?!" I half-yell. "You didn't say it was going to be twelve shirts! Fucking tomato bastard-" I clap a hand over my mouth and we both stare at each other, eyes wide. I'm just waiting for him to call the guards and have them kill me and mount my head on a stake in front of the castle gates when he begins to laugh. He laughs so hard he has to sit down on the ground so that he doesn't fall over, and it's such a funny image that even I begin to laugh a bit, which makes him laugh harder, which makes me laugh harder, until we're both laughing like drunkards and wiping tears from our eyes.

"T-tomato bastard," Antonio says, gasping. This almost sets off another round of laughter, but somehow we manage not to. My stomach hurts from all the laughing, and I'm surprised at myself. I haven't laughed since my parents died when I was twelve. That was when I had to begin caring for my little brother, who was just a small, possibly gay little eleven-year-old and needed to be protected lest he let slip that he liked boys.

Antonio cleared his throat. "Anyways, we really should get back to the shirts, because I need to know which one looks best."

My bad mood is almost instantly back, though I still feel fuzzy and light, like laughing made me grow wings. "How do you know that I'll know which one looks best? I don't know anything about fashion, or what colors go together, or-"

"I trust you," he said simply, getting up and picking out the first shirt. The words sink deep into my chest like a knife to my heart, taking my breath away. "How does this one look?" he asks, slipping a light blue one over his head.

"Hell no," I say grumpily. "Who picked that out anyways? A color blind monkey? Next." He tosses the shirt over his shoulder and slips on the next one. I try to ignore his lean, fit torso flex as he raises his arms above his head. This shirt is orange.

"Toss it," I say, jerking a thumb behind my back. "Unless you like looking like an orange threw up all over you."

Eight shirts fly by in this fashion, but the eleventh shirt-a deep red one-is the chosen one.

"That's it," I say, snapping my fingers. "That's good. Wear that." A thought suddenly occurs to me, but I don't ask it just yet. I get the feeling it'll ruin my kind of good mood.

He looks down at himself admiringly. "This one? You're sure? What about the next one?"

"This one, you asshole," I growl. "The next one is not the one." Oh my god, I sounded like some dipshit, big macho guy right there, didn't I? Wait, what do I care? So what. I don't like Principe anyways. Pssh, not me, hell no!

"Okay then, good. I'm glad we got that settled." He slips the shirt back off, then throws it into the new "good" pile. I find myself zeroing in on his belly button. I don't know why, I just like it. A lot. I mean, it's just a normal belly button, except that it's not, it's a wonderful belly button and I just wanna steal it and take it to my room and-hold on to your horses, what the fuck am I saying right now? Exactly what do I want to do with Prince Antonio of Supein's belly button? Oh. Hell. No. This was not acceptable, at all.

"Okay, well, I've gotta go, so bye!" I get to my feet and hurry to the door, hoping he won't do anything weird, like stop me or something. He doesn't, thank god. He just lets me open the door and run out, sort of half-heartedly closing it behind me as an afterthought.

**A/N I LMFAO every time I remember what Antonio will do with the Tomatoes... :D :D**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

The next day, something happens that turns my already foul mood even more black: I, Romano Vargas, am forced to help cook tomato sauce. Some dipshit decided that, because I am from the kingdom that created tomato sauce in the first place, I must be an expert at cooking the stuff. I am pretty good at it, but really, I don't want to be forced to do something like this! I thought I was leaving my old kingdom behind when I moved to Supein. I didn't think some tomato-loving bastard would request that I make him some goddamn tomato sauce!

"Fuck it all," I mutter under my breath as I stir the thick, dark red sauce. It's smells like heaven in a pot, even if it's different than Feli's. Excuse me for liking to experiment with the sauce. And besides, if my experimenting with it makes it turn out bad, well then, I know one Principe who won't request it ever again. Ever. With a capital "e". Oh hell yes, that would be bliss.

I consider the pouches of herbs that I requested be brought to me, since I'm not going to leave the sauce with some imbecile from Supein. Not that I would go and get it anyways.

I grab a pouch of cinnamon, consider it thoughtfully and then, with a wicked smile, dump at least a quarter of the contents into the overly large pot. I stir it in, feeling like a witch making an evil, poisonous spell. I let out a low, throaty cackle, then check behind me to make sure there aren't any random servants there even though I had kicked them all out. Thankfully, there isn't anybody there, which means that I can cackle as much as I fucking want and no one will call the guards so that they can kill the crazy person cooking food for Supein's royalty.

I add some other strange herbs that I pick at random, among them tarragon, marjoram, parsley, cilantro, paprika, crushed red pepper, and chocolate powder. I don't know how that will make it turn out, but I am open to the possibilities, especially if they include me not being in this position ever again.

I taste the sauce, which is hot enough that it burns my tongue, but yummy enough that I dip the spoon back in-heh, what those goddamn stuck-up Royals don't know won't hurt them-to get another taste. Then I realize that it tastes delicious, not disgusting, like I want it to. Fuck! Why can't I make something that's disgusting! Jesus motherfucking Christ!

I lean against the counter across from the wood-burning stove and glare balefully at that goddamn sauce, hoping it somehow turns disgusting in the three hours before dinner, but at the same time, hoping Principe will like it. The fuck is wrong with me...

Dinner is served at exactly seven o'clock in the evening. I am forced to walk out carrying the huge bowl of spaghetti and tomato sauce, which is nearly as big as I am. The bowl wouldn't normally be this big, but for some reason someone decided that they needed to have guests over to eat this, and I'm willing to bet my precious, brother-saving money that it was that goddamned tomato bastard.

I manage to carry the pasta all around the table while another servant serves it to everyone, and then I set it on the unoccupied end of the table just in case someone wants more, for some, masochistic (hopefully) reason. A couple other servants served the side dishes, like bread, some green vegetables (how could they ruin innocent pasta with those disgusting things?!), and some ham, which, I had to admit, smelled like the pig version of heaven. I almost wished that I were a Royal just so that I could eat this feast that I had set before these ungrateful dipshits.

After an overly-long prayer, in my opinion, is said before they finally start eating, and I find myself actually worrying about what they-well, just Principe, really -think about it. I wring my hands together in my apron before realizing what I'm doing and stopping. I shoot a dangerous glance towards the other servants who started sniggering when they noticed what I was doing, and then turn back to watching everyone eat.

...It makes me hungry, watching them eat. I want some so bad it hurts, and my stomach growls quietly. Hopefully they hadn't heard it, because that would be embarrassing.

When they're finally done, I sigh with relief, figuring it'll be over now and I can go to the kitchen and eat some of the ham, because I really, really want some, but no, they all have have seconds, and when they're done with those, they need to pay their goddamn compliments to the chef! I don't even know how I manage to smile throughout all of that, but I do. I also manage to not attack and kill Principe when he walks up to me, smiling like an idiot, and says that he knew I could do it. (Damn him to hell!) And then finally, finally I am allowed to eat. I'm in a rather gracious mood, so I let all the other servants eat it too, as long as they compliment me on my work when they're done. And then, finally, it's time...

...for Antonio to subject me to his usual nightly ritual, sending me around for water, tomatoes, sugar, and whatever else he apparently needs, which, this time, includes around twelve large jars with lids, which I have to bring up two at a time because they're so big.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck," I mumble as I walk up the stairs carrying the awful jars. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck," Antonio will pay for this, I promise myself. I'll get him back for this.

The really sad thing is, I know I won't.

A week goes by, and I manage to get at least ten more golden coins from that tomato bastard, putting me well on my way to getting Feli here by Christmas, which is in a couple months. The thought fills my stomach with bubbly happiness, and I find myself wanting to throw myself at Antonio and tell him he's made my dreams come true! ...Until I regain my sanity.

Antonio keeps on having me do the same damn things, bringing him water, tomatoes, sugar, sometimes blankets, or jars, and once he had me make him a sandwich-what the fuck? I mean, seriously? What is he doing up there? Is he stocking up on supplies so that he can just lock himself in there for an almost unlimited amount of time? The more I think about it, the more this makes sense, but at the same time doesn't make sense. It makes sense because he's gathering supplies and it seems like he could just use them to stay in there, but it doesn't make sense because he's such a strangely social person that I don't think he could lock himself in a room for an extended period of time without going crazy.

...Does he want to go crazy? I hope not, that's be a pain.

Tonight, it starts more or less the same; him summoning me with that damn bell. I trudge up the stairs, cursing him and his future descendants, then stop in front of his door and knock. He answers immediately.

"Romano!" he cries. "Come in, come in, I have something to show you!" He beams at me as he holds the door open. I suspiciously notice a flickering light coming from inside the strangely dark room.

"...What are you planning...?" I ask, looking at him with narrowed eyes. He just smiles at me, grabs my wrist, and gently pulls me inside. Then closes the door behind me. Leaving me to take in his bedroom.

It's different from the last time I was in here. Last time, there was a majestic bed in the middle of the room, a wardrobe and a desk pushed against the right wall, and a couple bedside tables, rather bare, for a prince. Now, the desk is nowhere to be seen, as are the two bedside tables, and the wardrobe and bed are pushed against the far wall, leaving the middle of the floor empty but for a small table that sits close to the ground. On the table is a plate of cheese and bread, and a couple wine bottles, two large wine glasses, and a couple candles, which is where the flickering light was coming from. It looks very... erotic isn't the right word, so I'll say "romantic".

Antonio shoos me to the table. "Sit, sit!" he exclaims excitedly. Looking around nervously, I do as he says, sitting down on one side of the table with my hands held nervously in my lap. He sits down on the other side, beaming as he pours us each a glass of wine. I stare at the wine, which is a bright red color, and suddenly the pieces click.

"Is this tomato wine?" I ask, shocked. Principe Antonio of Supein beams at me from across the table.

"Yes! I made it just for you! Try it!" I hesitantly reach out a hand towards the glass, taking a small sip and swirling it around in my mouth thoughtfully. I know a thing or two about wine, as my parents used to own a vineyard, and I know that this is some of the best wine I've ever tasted. Warm, sweet, not-quite sour, tasting of tomatoes and reminding me in a breathtaking fashion of Antonio himself, it's so good that I want to drink it forever and ever and ever.

I take another big sip. "It's delicious!" I tell him happily. I haven't eaten something so good for a long time now, and this just makes my day. Night. Whatever.

Antonio beams at me, taking a sip from his own glass, looking waaaay too happy for my liking.

We both drink for awhile. I try some of the bread and cheese, but mostly I just drink. I slowly feel a buzzing begin in my head, but I ignore it. This wine is good enough that I'd get drunk on it all the time and not mind a bit.

Antonio reaches out to refill our glasses once more, then looks down at his hands, which I figure are folded in his lap. I stop drinking, knowing that this is the climax, this is the whole reason I'm here.

"Romano," he begins, then stops. We're both quiet for a while.

"Principe?" I ask softly.

He jumps when he hears my voice, then looks up. The look in his eyes is so full of a soft, warm emotion that it makes my heart dance quickly around in my chest.

"Romano, I love you." he says simply. "I've loved you since the first moment I saw you."

My heart... stops. Literally. It just stops beating for a couple moments as I just stare at him. Then, thoughts begin racing through my head: But, we're both Catholic men. He's a Principe, I'm a servant. He's too nice for me. This just can't work. I don't love him back.

My heart starts beating faster and I feel the urge to throw myself into his arms and... and... just be, right there, with him, for all of eternity. I'm so mixed up. I'm only here to give my brother a better life, the life he deserves, not to... to fall in love, and certainly not with the Prince of Supein! Who is a male! The same sex as I am! Oh, god. Oh, god! Fucking dammit!

You'll marry a guy who likes tomatoes! The words come to me like I'm dreaming. Feli was right. Well, no, not right, because I'm not going to marry this guy, I'd be killed before that happened. But I did fall in love with a guy who likes tomatoes. He likes them enough to make me tomato wine. Honestly, I didn't even know that that was possible!

I stare and stare and stare at Antonio, and he stares back at me. I want to do nothing more than crawl into his lap and tell him I love him as well, but then what about my brother? I can't just abandon my brother back there! He needs me! It's not safe for him there!

Fuck fuck fuckfuckfuckfuck! God, why did this have to happen?! Why couldn't I just gather up the money I need in peace?!

But, at the same time, I want this to happen, and continue happening, forever and always until the world ceases to exist.

Antonio's happy expression is beginning to fade, and I know he wants-no, needs an answer right now. This is dangerous, dangerous, dangerous, and he needs to know what... what I want.

I lick my lips. I clear my throat. I open my mouth. "I..." I clear my throat again. "I... I know." I finally say, cheeks burning. I can't say it. I can't get the words past my lips. They're so easy to say in my head, but not aloud. I stare at him, hoping he understands, hoping he gets what I mean, hoping he knows what I want.

And, oh God, he does.

We stare at each other from across the table, and I want nothing more than to press my lips to his and melt into him, but I know I won't. No, I need to protect my baby brother. I need to help him come to this kingdom to live with me. I need-

Antonio gently pushes the table out of the way, and I forget what I need besides that I need to feel his lips on mine, his hands on me. I throw myself forward and awkwardly press my lips to his, but it's enough, it's enough, and it's beautiful and God, this is so wonderful-

He cradles me in his arms and deepens the kiss, and it's wonderful, and I want it to continue forever, but I know that it can't.

I don't know how long we just sit there, kissing, but it's probably too long, and if I didn't have my own room, I'd be worried someone would notice I wasn't in bed yet.

When we finally pull apart, I know that no matter how much I need to protect my brother, I won't stop secretly seeing him. He's just too... wonderful to let go of just like that.

I get to my feet. "I have to go," I say hoarsely. He looks up at me like he understands but doesn't want to. "See you later," I tell him. "Thanks for the... date." I smile at him as I say it. and he smiles back, and then I leave.

**A/N Okay, I just have to tell all you crazy Spamano fangirls: TOMATO WINE IS NOT POSSIBLE. I looked it up. You need to make wine with sweet fruit, not acidic fruit, like tomatoes, so DON'T GO GETTING ANY CRAZY IDEAS! :D :D Oh, and this chapter was shorter than the other, but you KNOW that it definitely did it for ya, so shut your gobs and read it again! :) :) And yes, I am evil.**

**QUICK SHOUT OUT TO EVERYONE WHO HAS FAVORITED/FOLLOWED THIS STORY! YOU ARE AWESOME!**

**NOT-QUICK SHOUT OUT TO EVERYONE WHO REVIEWED! YOU ARE ROCK HARD! :) :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

The next day, I'm not quite sure how I keep my heart from tearing itself out of my chest and flying smack into Antonio as I serve him breakfast. Seeing him makes my heart race so fast I feel light-headed, and I fucking hate it! ...A little bit...

I don't look him in the eye throughout the whole of that day, even though he tries to make eye-contact a couple times. I am just not having it, at all! I don't want to do this anymore, I just decided last night, when I was going to sleep. My main priority at the moment is getting Feli into Supein, not dating Antonio-or should I go back to referring to him as Principe now that we're no closer than master and servant?

But really... how close are master and servant, when you think about it?

Well, it doesn't fucking matter, because I'm not fucking doing it anymore, at all, so there, in your fucking face Antonio!

So, you kind of have to wonder why exactly I still go to his room when he rings for me. I still knock softly on the door, walk inside, call him an asshole, then start furiously making out with him. This time, we're on his bed, not the floor, and it's much more comfortable. I feel a little braver tonight than I did last night, so I let him take off my shirt. It's just my torso, I tell myself, but that gives him a lot more room to move...

But nothing happens. We both stop just before anything can, and we just lay next to each other on his bed, breathing hard. I try to resist the urge to snuggle up to him-sadly, I've snuggled with my brother one too many times, and now I like it. He looks over at me, and I look over at him, and then he reaches and pulls me to his chest.

"Tomato bastard." I mutter into his shirt. He laughs, and starts gently running his fingers through my hair. He leans down and kisses me on the forehead, and I feel my heart speed up. Damn him, he's just so...  
"Asshole," I murmur sleepily as he begins rubbing circles in my back. He just smiles as I quickly fall asleep.

I wake up early the next morning, if you can even call it that. It's still dark outside. I did this on purpose so that I could move to my room in the middle of the night and not wake anyone up.

I stand up and search around for my fucking shirt-damn this darkness, how's anyone supposed to see?-and finally find it nearly underneath the bed. I walk to the door, quietly step outside and walk down the hall to the goddamn stairs, then to my room. I change into different clothes-ones that don't smell like Antonio- then climb into bed. I fall asleep instantly.

I wake up just as the sun is rising to the morning bell. Groaning, I somehow manage to get my ass out of bed, then shuffle to the door and slam it open, ready to chew whoever decided to ring that god forsaken bell to itty bitty pieces. I stop in the kitchen, confused. Everyone is running around like beheaded chickens, freaking out and trying to cook or clean or something, but too freaked out to do anything.

I grab the first thing I find-a big, plump tomato-and throw it at the cook, who I especially hate. It splats against her head and she screams, making everyone stop instantly.

"What the fuck is going on here?" I ask, pissed off. No one answers. "I said," I start again. "What the fuck is going on here?"

"Th-the P-prince's f-fiance is c-coming." A small servant boy stammers fearfully.

"Finally, someone answers-wait, WHAT?!" I shout. "FIANCE? Dammit all, no one ever told me about this! Fuck it all, I'm going back to bed!" I stomp back to my room, throw myself under the covers, and try, in vain, to go back to fucking sleep. Aw, fuck the world, and fuck Antonio, and his goddamn fiance, and all the powers that be and make this come to pass, and, you know what? Fuck horses for good measure.

I don't know how long I stay in bed, but it's long enough that by the time I get up it's because I feel like I'm dying of hunger. I go to the kitchens, grab some bread and cheese, then go and bother the cook, asking when Antonio's fiance is supposed to be coming. I don't actually call him Antonio though, I call him fucking tomato bastard, just so that she won't think I've gotten close to him or anything,

"A fortnight," she tells me tiredly. "we have to start preparing now, though, cleaning up her room, and the castle, stocking up on the food she likes, all that jazz. And then, once she's here, it'll take another week for them to actually get married."

Three weeks, I think to myself. Three weeks to stop this. Three weeks. I give her a nod. "Asshole," I tell her, more to stick to my reputation than anything else. Then I leave, back up the servant's stairs and to Antonio's room. And you can bet good, good cash on the fact that I will be getting a goddamn answer.

I walk up to the door and knock on it, hard, not caring if he's still asleep or something stupid like that. He's not, though, because the door opens. I cross my arms and raise my eyebrows at him, just looking at him. He looks right back at me, for once not smiling idiotically.

"Romano, what are you doing here?" he asks, sounding vaguely nervous, like I'm planning on gutting him or something.

"I didn't know you had a fiance," I say with false sweetness. "Where's she from? Is she pretty?"

He scratches the back of his head. "Um, about that... I don't actually want to, um, marry, you know... anyone but you-" My heart stops beating for a couple of seconds. "-but, well, I kind of... have to. I mean, she comes from the kingdom we're at war with, and this will be like a peace treaty, and-"

"You have a sister." I point out. "And I know for a fact that Turc has a Prince too."

His eyes light up as if he's just realized something. "Oh! Oh, yeah! Now that you point that out, you're right, aren't you?"

"I'm always right, tomato bastard." I say, rolling my eyes.

"It still doesn't change anything though," he tells me solemnly. "This engagement is set in stone, and I mean that literally. Both kingdoms literally set it in stone."

I facepalm. "Is everyone as stupid as you are?" I ask.

He smiles. "Yes." He grabs me and pulls me into the room, holding me close to him. "I meant what I said earlier." he tells me seriously.

"About how everyone is as stupid as you are?"

"About how I don't want to marry anyone but you." My heart once again stops.

"Boys don't marry boys," I say, just repeating what I told Feli all those years ago.

"I don't care." He begins to kiss me, starting at my forehead, then traveling down my face and to my neck, unbuttoning my shirt as he goes so that he can go down farther and farther and farther...

**A/N So, you will be seeing more of the plotline soon... O.O**

**P.S. Just read all of your reviews... if I could grab a picture of my face right then to show you, I would, but for now, I'll just tell you that I was giggling manically with my hand shoved over my mouth, and a creepy, France look on my face. :) Anyways, thanks for the reviews, you guys make me want to, I dunno, go hide under a bench and yell at people who sit on it. **


	5. Chapter 5

I feel the need to say this:

I do not own Hetalia, but I do own this story, story line and my interpretation of the characters from Hetalia that are being used in this story. (please add random obscenities here, including something along the lines of "Suck my balls!" though I'm female) Thank you very much for reading, and I hope you all have a delicious Thanksgiving, even if you're not American and don't celebrate it right now! Or ever! Just take some time to eat something delicious! Like chocolate! :D :D *wonders how many extra words she just added to this chapter*

**********Chapter Five**

The fortnight passes in what seems like a blink of the eye. I mean, it's like one minute, I'm standing there, making out with Antonio (the bastard), and the next, I'm making out with Antonio again, only two weeks have passed.

And no, we didn't spend two weeks making out (...I have mixed feelings about that idea...) but that's the only thing that stands out. I wonder what that means about my life, that the most important thing to me is making out with a gay prince who's getting married to someone else even when he says he'd rather marry me? God, I'm such an idiot, a miserable, gullible idiot. The realization does absolutely nothing to stop me from meeting up with him in his room every night, though.

The day the princess shows up, I have a hard time getting out of bed, and it's not because I got early arthritis or something-I'm only, like, seventeen, guys, fuck off-it's because I feel like staying in bed would just be better for everyone. I'm not sure I have enough self control to stop myself from attacking Antonio's fiance with silverware. I feel it would be better for Feli if I just don't get up today, because then he could still travel to this kingdom.

But sadly, they want me to make another dish from my kingdom, something that isn't pasta. I just stared and stared and stared at them when they said that, and then I said, "You want me to make fish?" like they had just asked me to do something awful, like pretend I like the princess.

They just looked at me like, "What, you guys only eat pasta and fish over there?" and I looked back at them like, "Mostly, yeah, since we lived by the ocean." and then they looked at me like, "Think of something else, dumbass." and I flipped them off and left the room to go think of something else.

And the only thing I could think of was zucchini. Fried and breaded zucchini. Zucchini casserole with tomato sauce and cheese. And that's it. Wow. It's no wonder I made Feli cook all those years we lived alone. I have no memory for food.

When the princess finally shows up, just before lunch (which I'm not cooking, I'm supposed to be doing dinner, fuck it all), all of us servants have to line up on either side of the road her carriage is driving up. I consider hiding behind the people next to me so that the princess can't see me, but then I decide that I might as well get a good look at the stupid bitch who is going to steal my-ahem, marry Antonio.

It takes a loooooong time for her to finally reach where I'm standing, which is near the entrance to the castle, where her carriage will be stopping. When she finally does reach the door, I'm just about ready to throw rotten tomatoes at her because she made me wait. I have better things to do than wait for some bitch to show up, believe me.

She steps out of her carriage like she's some super famous... well, princess, and then practically forces Antonio to come and kiss her hand (I think I'm the only one who can see the disgust on his face, so who knows if it's real or just my imagination finally bothering to work), then take her arm and lead her up the steps to the open palace doors, which are big and huge and heavy and have never been touched by me, not even when I was just a lowly doorman in the palace who was hired for the purpose of opening them. I'm not going to waste my time pushing around heavy things when I can get the same amount of money for not pushing things!

Once she's well inside the castle, the servants are allowed to go inside, because the princess can't actually be in the same room as us unless we're serving her. Outside doesn't count, because outside isn't a room. And I'm dead serious about this whole thing. A list of things the princess was absolutely not allowed to do was sent to us before her arrival by her older brother, the king of the kingdom she came from. These things included going to bed after seven-thirty in the evening, waking up after eight o'clock in the morning, not eating vegetables, not eating fruit, and wearing any dresses knee-length or shorter, with a lot of others that I didn't bother remembering. God, her older brother sounds like such a hardass. Hopefully he's too overprotective of her to actually let her leave his side to marry a lazy fag like Antonio. (But if Antonio's a fag, then am I-never mind.)

The person who is, unfortunately-FOR HIM!-making lunch gets to run inside first so that he can finish whatever it is he's making-some sort of "savory soup" thing-doesn't die. I go in second, because I want to and everyone parts to let me pass so that they don't have to deal with me having Antonio fire any of them. Yeah, these guys are pretty easily cowed. I feel like I'm the Principe. not Antonio.

Once I'm inside, I go straight to my room to plan just exactly how I will give the Principessa-I've heard that her name is Lili, or something air-headed like that-food poisoning. It will be hard, I know. I mean, how will I get the rat poisoning onto just her plate when, just for preventing something of this sort, they all serve themselves from one bowl instead of just having someone bring them out a plate. Hm... well, I could... I could... OH! I could rub the stuff onto her plate! It's genius!

I race out of my room and go straight to the kitchen. I search around for a bit for the plate that we will be using for dinner, which I know are sitting out in the kitchen somewhere. They're nowhere to be seen, and I began searching my brain for any black magic curses I might've picked up somewhere, so that I can cast one on this "Lili" person and kill her that way. When I can't think of anything, I go back to the rat poisoning idea.

"Hey, you, servant!" I snap my fingers at some random girl walking by, making her nearly jump straight out of her corset, which is quite a mean feat. I mean, have you ever tried taking one of those things off? It's like trying to take skin off of a rock; impossible, so jumping out of one-no way in hell.

"Y-yes?" she stammers, tugging at the hems of her sleeves like that'll protect her from my evil tongue.

"Where are the plates we're going to serve dinner on."

"Wh-why do you n-need to kn-know?" she stammers.

I give her the evil eye. "Who do you think is making fucking dinner here? I need to fucking inspect the plates! Jesus Christ, I'm surrounded by idiots!" I facepalm, then watch as she scurries away to go bring me the plates. When she comes back with them, she bows as she hands them to me, small arms trembling under the weight of them. I grab them from her so she doesn't drop them all and break them, and set them on the counter. "Good. You can go now. Go do something else." I wave her away, waiting until she's good and gone to go to one of the supply closets and grab some rat poisoning.

I have a brief moment of hesitation when I'm standing in front of the plates, but then I shove it off and poor some rat poisoning onto Lili's plate, rubbing it on with a thick piece of cloth. When I've made sure to get every single part of it covered in the stuff, I set it to the side to dry off. Then I go back to figuring out what to eat. It should be something with some sort of sauce, because then all of the rat poisoning will get wet again and she'll eat more of it, and then, hopefully, she'll die. And yeah, I know that there are a lot of things that could go wrong with this plan, but screw it all! I don't give a fuck, godfuckingdammit!

I finally decide on some zucchini dish thing with tomato sauce on it. I don't actually know how to make it, but who gives a fuck. The worse it is, the less happy Lili will be when she dies. Heh heh heh... this is so going to fail. I'm going to get executed, and Feli will be forced to stay in my old kingdom, waiting to hear from me while struggling to support himself... all because I suddenly turned gay and fell for the prince of Supein. I swear, I liked girls before I came to the castle! I mean it! I'd even had a girlfriend before! We dated for, like, three months, and then suddenly I'm hired at the castle and turn gay! It's like something in the air here! (Or maybe because Antonio's so hot-No! I won't think that! It's betraying God-meeeeh, God can go fuck himself if he doesn't think Antonio looks great without a shirt on-well, yeah, I agree, just a bit...)

Anyways.

I make the tomato sauce, putting even more weird stuff in it than last time, then stare at the zucchini and try to remember what Feli used to do with it. I slice it up, shove it in a baking dish and decide, in true Italia fashion, that I will just cover it with cheese and hope it turns out. Then I wait for it to be closer to dinner time.

It takes four hours for it to be closer to dinner time. Four hours in which I sit in the kitchen and read a book I had some random person pull off of a shelf. It's an awful book. As far as I can tell, it's about a guy and a girl who hate each other but then like each other, or something like that, and it's called Pride and Prejudice. I can't help feeling that it would be at least twenty-seven times better if they had to fight zombies while hating-but-then-liking-each-other, but oh well, this will have to do.

Once I've somehow passed four hours reading the book (I think I might've fallen asleep for, you know, three-and-a-half hours) I stick the zucchini-but-mostly- cheese thing in the oven and mix the sauce aimlessly. Okay, so I've put rat poison on Lili's plate, and she'll probably die, like, tonight, or maybe tomorrow, and... I have nothing to do. I frown down at the awful books, then wonder if I could rewrite it but with zombies. I decide I should just focus on saving Feli and killing Lili, and throw the book into the fire.

At some point, someone comes in and takes the plates to set them on the table, and I have a huge moment of panic where I think that the poisoned plate might go to someone else, but then I remember that I factored it all out in my head and I put all the plates in a certain order so the the poisoned plate would end up where the princess is sitting, next to Antonio, who sits to the right hand side of the king, who sits at the head of the table. But, just in case, I marked the princesses plate by scraping off one of the little painted-on flowers that border the edges. If the plate somehow ends up in some random nobleman's spot, I can make some excuse and grab the plate from him and replace it with another.

It'll all work out perfectly!

Or so I tell myself... I'm actually just the tiniest bit doubtful though...

Around twenty minutes later, dinner is served. I've gotta walk out carrying this big huge dish of... whatever I made, exactly, and when I set it down on the table and people look at me like, "What in the fuck is this weird-looking stuff?" I say some random words in Italia and hope no one can actually speak it, because all I said was "Cane Cavallo Zucchini." In other words, "Chicken Horse Zucchini." Sounds pretty unappetizing, honestly. I don't think I'd eat something called that even if Antonio fed it to me-ahem, not that, ah, that situation appeals to me at all, fuck it.

I walk over to lean against one of the walls to watch Lili die. It's only once people start dishing out that I realize that... the servants pulled out some special plate for the princess to eat off of and, because of the order in which the servants put the plates around the table... the poisoned plate has ended up in Antonio's spot!

I watch, paralyzed, and Antonio begins to pile the weird stuff onto his plate.

**A/N THANK YOU FOR THE REVIEWS! Once again, I feel that I have to say that when I saw them I did some major fangirling and had a giggling-fit, but whatever, jusayin'. And, I just realized... *stars in eyes* I now have TWO PAGES of reviews! *is easily excited* Omg you guys're the best!**

**I will take this time to answer a couple reviews, because I feel that I have to answer everyone's, and, sadly, I can't reply to yours since you weren't signed in or something? So, basically, you get to have your name on this chapter! You're now officially famous! *is full of shit***

**First off: Hsjzj, who reviewed a while ago. I will, as you have seen, I guess, and thanks! I love compliments! *purrs in satisfaction* ;)**

**Second: Kittruvsyou, I will be answering both of yours. I will review as soon as I can while still being lazy and writing for NaNoWriMo, and everyone is actually a yaoi lover, they just don't know it yet. :D Besides, this isn't even that bad. *has read some... interesting stuff* Please don't ask. Please.**

**Third: fragrent harbor, Thank you! All I can say is that Prussia better watch out, because I'm starting to refer to myself as "The Awesome Me" sometimes! :D :D Will do! Or at least, I'll try... *knocks on skull* It's a bit fluffy in here though... ;)**

**(Okay, so apparently the story has decided to be bold... whatever. Weird story.)**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

In the moments before the food leaves the baking dish and hits Antonio's plate, the thoughts that run through my head are: blank panic, ohshitwhatamIgoingtodoIneedt o stophimfromeatingthat, but if I do that Feli-FUCK FELI, ANTONIO IS-Feli is family and your little brother who you're s'posed to take care-I DON'T GIVE A FUCK I RATHER LIKE ANTONIO-but you don't love him, and you love Feli-I LOVE HIM IF IT MEANS HE DOESN'T DIE!

And then I say the first thing that comes to mind:

"RAT!" I shriek, pointing to the far corner of the room. Immediately, everyone jumps to their feet, screaming and running around like crazy people. Rats carry the plague, which can kill you in under forty-eight hours. Oh, plus there's no cure, so rats are scary to people. (Don't tell anyone, but we have not only a cure but a vaccination in Itali, so I'm actually protected from rats.)

But anyways, during all this major confusion and screaming, I dart through the crowd, somehow not crashing into too many people (hey, that one bitch deserved it, she was looking at me funny all through dinner), and then make it to where Antonio was sitting. He's not there anymore, probably because some loyal servant (not me) grabbed the princess and then kinda saw him and decided "Oh, what the fuck, might as well take him too." and led them both somewhere far away from my imaginary rat. Well, whatever, it doesn't matter, so long as I break this goddamn plate. I grab it in my hands and drop it onto the floor. People scream even louder at the sound, but the plate just doesn't break, fuck the world, so I quickly stomp on it before someone can actually see what I'm doing. This time it manages to break, and I breathe a sigh of relief as I turn to help ferry people out of the room, like I'm supposed to be doing. Not that I'm actually ferrying anybody, I'm just looking for Antonio; the rest of these assholes can go fuck themselves, or, better yet, throw themselves out the nearest window, or get bitten by a rat, or something. So long as they die, I'm good.

I find Antonio a bit farther down the hallway, looking around for someone. When he spots me, he looks relieved, and it makes me want to go up to him and tell him everything I just did, but I don't. I mean, I just tried to kill Princess Lili. That's treason, even if they're not married yet. And besides, Antonio probably doesn't even know how evil I really am yet, and I don't want him to not like me, because then I can't make out with him anymore-not that I like it or anything, it's just something to do, y'know, just a way to pass the time that's just a teeny bit entertaining.

Who am I kidding...

"Romano, are you okay?" he asks once we've finally managed to reach each other through the throng of people.

"Asshole," I say, but I nod to let him know that I am. He looks at me like he wants to grab me and pull me into a deep hug and kiss me on the top of my head and say that he was so worried about me, and it makes my heart break into tiny little pieces when he doesn't. Instead, he just gently places a lightly bronzed hand on my shoulder, sending countless tingles up and down my body from where he touches me, and says that he's glad that I'm okay. I feel tears in my eyes, but I blink them stubbornly away and nod at him, trying not to look him in the eye. I know that if I do I'll burst into tears, and a confession about Lili will ensue, as well as me hanging from the gallows. And then what'll happen to poor Feli?

"Romano, let's go to my room, where we can talk about... this." He says "this" like he's talking about the planet earth and all living things in it. I know that he's really talking about me and him and this whole Lili thing, but he makes it sound so big and important to every living thing, ever. Well, fuck him, I won't go!

"Fine," I say, shrugging. "Let's hurry up though, before someone notices that I'm not trying to help catch the rat."

Antonio chuckles. "If they do, I'll just say that I need you for something important. This is important to you, isn't it?" he asks, somehow seductively, as he leads me down the hall from the dining room and to the real stairs-not the servant stairs!-and up to his room. I keep looking back to make sure no one is following us, because I just hate that the servants' theories about me and him are right, or at least close to being right.

"Yes." I answer decisively, turning back to look at him. "It is, actually. Very." I've come to a decision. I'm not sure what it is, or what it's about, but it's definitely there and, if you can believe it, it's decided. "...Fuck you." I mutter under my breath. God, he just sets my teeth on edge.

He opens the door to his room and pulls me inside, then sits us both down on the bed, but not before locking the door behind us and grabbing one of the jars of tomato wine. I can't help but wonder at the amount of the stuff he managed to make in just those few days-well, maybe it was more like a couple weeks, but still, I thought it took a long time for wine to become, well... wine.

Whatever. Doesn't matter. Especially not when Antonio leans forward and presses a soft kiss on my lips. I immediately want to melt into it, but he pulls away before I can, leaving me with my eyes nearly closed and wanting WAY more.

"Look, Roma, about... Lili, I-"

I hold up a hand, stopping him. "Look, I know that you don't like her, that you're just marrying her for peace between your two kingdoms, blah blah blah... But," I turn and look him fiercely in the eye. "you said you'd rather marry me, and I'd like to see you act upon that, because honestly, it's either me or her." My heart quickens nervously as I say this. To think that I, Romano Vargas, simple, Italia farm boy, would ever be ordering around the Principe of Supein.

Antonio nods and looks down at his hands, which are clenched in his lap. "I... I know. I just-I don't really know what to do, you know?" He looks at me like he wants me to give him the answers.

This is what I do instead:

"I have a little brother," I tell him. "He still lives in Itali. I'm raising money to bring him over here." I make sure to look him straight in the eye as I say all of this, to let him know that I mean serious business. "I'm about two-thirds done with raising the money." After all those gold coins you gave me for bringing you ingredients for wine you were making for me. "You'd better decide between your kingdom an me before I finish, because if you don't, I'm choosing my brother, capiche?"

He looks at me like I just told him to live the rest of his life without water.

It's touching, really, but for the fact that I want him to do something terribly romantic, like sweep me into his arms and say that he's just decided, though with my luck he'd kiss me, then stare deep into my eyes and say, "My kingdom," and then have me hanged.

I cross my arms in front of my chest poutily, feeling impossibly spoiled. "Do I have to repeat myself, tomato bastard?" I demand sharply. He seems to come to his senses. Or, at least, he shakes his head as if answering my question, but it could just be that there's a fly buzzing around behind me and he's just watching it go back and forth.

"Do you really get it?" I ask once more. "I swear to fucking god I will leave if you don't answer me, Antonio Hernandez Carriedo."

He seems to snap out of it for real this time. Like, his eyes actually focus on me instead of the fly. "I'm sorry, I know, I was just..." He sighs, then runs a hand through his hair. "It's just a hard decision."

I don't know if I should feel honored that he's actually seriously thinking about this, like it's hard, or angry that he didn't just immediately choose me over Supein.

I suddenly notice him looking at me, and it makes me a bit uneasy.

"I hope this isn't the part where I say, 'Want me to help you make that decision?' because I honestly don't want to have to make you decide by doing something like that." I say, speaking my mind honestly for the first time in what seems like centuries.

He chuckles at this. "Though I would appreciate something like that, I wouldn't want you to have to help me decide like that either."

I try not to add that if my performance had been bad he would've chosen his kingdom over me, which would embarrass me beyond belief.

I look at him shrewdly. "Do I have to leave then?" I ask.

"Hm? Why would you have to leave?" He looks adorably confused-not that I find him, or even guys in general, adorable.

"So that I wouldn't be tempted to do something like THIS." Smiling wickedly, I lean forward and kiss him, wrapping my arms around his neck so that I can run my fingers through his dark brown curls. I pull away just a tiny bit. "See? I can't even control myself."

He makes a "hmph" noise, then wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me into a deeper kiss. We spend a couple minutes like that, and then he extracts himself from me somehow, though I try my best not to let him. "This won't change my decision at all." he tells me nobly, looking me in the eye and everything. I barely manage to hold back a laugh.

"But what if they change mine?" I ask innocently.

He grins evilly. "Well then, I think we need to do this a bit more often!"

**A/N I'd just like to tell all of you that, no matter what this thing says, I wrote most of this on Thanksgiving, so you'd better give me some thankful reviews! *feels terribly proud of herself for thinking up something so witty* But anyways, in this chapter it's mentioned that Romano's kingdom has a name, which you didn't know about before. I just wanted to tell you all that this was NOT me being terribly clever, but me only just figuring out what to call the damn place-after all, it can't exactly be Hetalia, can it? Or just plain old Italy. In the end, I changed it to Itali, and turned "Italian" into "Italia". Not that you cared, but whatever. PLEASE REVIEW! Because this is what I look like when I read them all: *o***


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Vash Zwingli was sitting in his throne room with his feet propped up on a majestic-looking footstool, drinking a glass of very expensive wine and trying to resist the urge to fire all of his servants so as to save money.

He had a gem-encrusted crown perched a bit crookedly on his blond hair, and he really, really, really wanted to set it down on the small little table next to him so that he wouldn't break it. Sadly, he couldn't, because he was meeting with one of his spies today and his advisor had told him to at least keep up the image of being rich.

The doors on the far end of his, admittedly rather small, throne room were swung open wide and in stalked the man he was paying to spy on the royalty of Supein. The man looked so cross that Vash considered calling his guards and having them remove the man from his throne room. This room was basically all the money he had, and he couldn't get it trashed without having all the wealth in his kingdom go "Bye bye!" and run off like a small child chasing butterflies.

He put his hand on the sword by his side as the man approached, so that he would be ready to dart forward and kill the man if he tried anything.

"Do you have any news for me?" Vash asked, trying to sound bored and royal. He was not meant to be a king, of that he was completely certain.

"Yes, my liege," the man said through gritted teeth, looking as if he couldn't stand calling Vash something as respectful as "my liege". Vash decided that he would have the man executed as soon as he had all the information he needed about Supein.

"What is it?" he asked. He was anxious to hear how his younger sister, Lili, was doing. If anything had happened to her, he was prepared to infiltrate the castle himself so as to kill whoever had harmed her.

"Bad news! All of it! First, there's the King. A bigger fool than I've ever had the misfortune of serving, and I serve you!" He glared at Vash as if daring him to shut him up. Vash couldn't do that until he had heard all the news, though, she he just gripped the handle of his sword more tightly so as to ready himself for the worst.

"And then the Queen!" the man ranted on. "Obsessed only with clothes and appearances, she has weekly garden parties where they have a contest to see who has the best dress." The man rolls his eyes. "I mean, really?"

Vash sighed. "Continue, please?" he said dangerously, looking to the shadows where both men knew dozens of guards waited for their king's orders to kill.

"The prince is, well, I suppose he's fine. Nice enough, I guess, but stupid as a dog and just as friendly-and I mean one of those sweet dogs, not one of the evil ones. The real problem is that servant!"

"Servant?" Vash asked, just a bit confused.

"Servant." the man repeated.

"You're sure the servant is the problem-"

"YES! Oh my god, he's awful! He basically rules the castle because he's the prince's favorite. He doesn't ever actually work, just orders other servants to do his own work, and if he doesn't like the servant, or if they try to stand up to him, he has the prince fire them! And, worse, there are rumors that he and the prince are sleeping together, if you know what I mean, which goes completely against God's will, and the worst of it is that last night, I'm quite sure that he tried to poison the princess Lili but his plan failed and so he pretended to see a rat so that someone else wouldn't die in her place-I'm not certain of this, but that's what it seemed like, if you ask me. And," the man took a deep breath before continuing. "last night, I followed him and the prince up to the prince's bedchambers. I stayed there until I had to leave to some here, to you, but he never came out. He spent the whole night in there with him!" The man looked about as disgusted as Vash felt.

"I don't think that that is the most suitable environment for my baby sister to be living in for the rest of her life, and I do not want her marrying a man who's more obsessed with his own male servant than my sister. We attack tomorrow at dawn. Dismissed," Vash waved his hand through the air and a half-dozen guards came to lead the man away, but not before tying his hands behind his back.

"Hey! Hey, what are you doing?" the man asked, fear soon replacing the haughty tone in his voice. "We-we had a deal! You said that I could become a citizen of your country if I just spied on them-"

"I didn't realize back then how rude you were," Vash said. "Throw him in the dungeons. I'll decide what to do with him later. For now, round up some more soldiers. We are going to storm the great castle of Supein and rescue my poor baby sister."

The head of palace security stepped out from behind his throne, and Vash had a hard time resisting the urge to jump. "Yes, Your Highness," the man said with a slight bow. "I'll see to it that your orders are followed down to the dot." He turned and seemed to fade away into the shadows. A couple moments later, he stepped into the light again, this time all the way at the other end of the throne room. He turned back and saluted his king, blond hair slicked back, blue eyes blank, looking every inch the proper soldier.

He turned and left, and Vash took out his sword and began to sharpen it. He would need a good, sharp blade ready for when he decapitated the prince and his most loyal servant.

**A/N A NEW CHAPTER! You should all get down on your knees and thank Ed Sheeran for having the best music ever and helping me get through NaNoWriMo so that I could write this for you. I just reached my fifty-thousand word mark about an hour and a half ago, and then I even wrote this for you! True, half of it was already written... and it's really short anyways... but at least I wrote, dammit! D: Well, anways, enjoy and tell me what you think and, as always, thank you for the reviews, they make my day! :D**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

I wake up feeling warm and fuzzy, which is not something I feel, well, ever. I don't know why I feel like this, so I slowly open my eyes and look around. All I see are red blankets. But, wait. I don't have red blankets, do I?

Slowly, the night before come back to me, and I look to my right. There lies Antonio, Crown Prince of Supein. As soon as I see him, I realize that his arms are wrapped around my waist. And we're spooning. I'm spooning with a prince after just trying to kill his fiance and nearly killing him in doing so. And the bad part is that I don't even feel guilty about it. Well, not about killing Lili; if I had killed Antonio, I would've thrown myself out of the nearest window.

For a moment, I consider shoving him away from me and screaming curses. That moment passes, and instead I just cuddle further into his arms, insisting to myself that it's just cold and I'm scooching under the blankets and that, oh look, there's Antonio right there, I didn't even notice him!

Yeah... I'm totally lying to myself, by the way. I mean, even I know that.

Antonio stirs behind me, and the way his body fits against mine makes my heart beat a little bit faster.

"Mm... Romano?" he asks sleepily. "What are you doing here?"

I close my eyes and just enjoy the presence of his hands on my stomach. "Sleeping," I murmur.

"But aren't you usually gone by the time I wake up...?" he asks sleepily. He starts to move like he's going to get up, but I grab his arms to keep him down.

"Yeah, I s'pose." I mutter. "But so what, who cares..."

"Mm." he agrees, nuzzling into the back of my neck. And then: "But wait, sometimes my mother likes to make surprise visits to me in the morning." And as he says it, I can hear footsteps coming down that hallway outside his room.

"Fuck!" I say, throwing the blankets off of myself. I look around for my shirt, which had escaped at some point during Last Night. I find it, throw it on, then look around for a place to hide. Antonio catches my eye and then points to the bed. At first I think he means for me to, like, hide under the blankets or something idiotic like that, but then I realize that he wants me to get under the bed, and I almost think it's a good idea... until I remember that I don't like small spaces that much. I make a face, then quickly crawl underneath it, trying to keep breathing, and steadily at that. I make it just in time; as soon as I'm mostly underneath it, Antonio's mother, the queen, who has a name, I suppose, charges into the room like a... em, I dunno, but something that charges a lot. Oh, a bull I guess. Or a big, fat rhinoceros.

"Toni~!" she sings, running over to him and throwing off his blankets. They land in front of my face, which makes it hard to breathe. I shove them away a little and fresh air reaches my lungs. Yes! Fresh air, dammit!

"Toni, wake up! It's time to get up in the moooorning, it's time to get up in the moooorning, it's time to get up in the mooooooorniiiiiing! And something something some!" I stifle a groan at her extremely off-tune singing. She sounds like a dying cat trying to sing it's own funeral hymn, except worse. If I didn't know she was human, I would literally think it was an animal howling. While in pain. And giving birth to something extremely large.

"Toni, what do you think of your new fiance? She's cute, huh? Isn't she? And now we can be at peace with her kingdom! Isn't this exciting!" I can see the queen's feet begin moving around as she starts excitedly dancing around the room.

"Um, yeah!" Antonio agrees, and I hope, for his sake, that he didn't mean that, or else he will find himself minus one loyal Romano tomorrow morning.

"Oh, good! I'm glad you like her! The wedding is in about a month, so that we can get everything prepared~!" She tries to sing the last word, and... well, let's just say that she fails. A lot. "I'm so excited! I love weddings, and I never thought I'd see the day where my son married a girl!"

"Mother..." Antonio sighs. Oh, so Antonio's been gay for awhile now, hmm? Thank you, Queen Antonio's Mother, for telling me this interesting information.

"You should be happy too!" she insists. "Wives are good for the soul!"

I try to use my psychic powers to get Antonio to ask her what she means by that. He doesn't. How useless.

"Okay, mother. I'm glad you think that." Antonio intones in a rather practiced way, like he rehearses it in front of a mirror twice daily. His mother doesn't even seem to notice, going about her usual-or, at least, I figure it's usual, since she does it with such ease-business, which is mostly bothering Antonio about anything under the sun. That exists. Or maybe doesn't. I tuned out her voice a loooong time ago.

I only zone back into the conversation when the door is opened and the princess comes in. Her voice is so quiet that I have to strain to hear and when I finally hear that she's just saying "Good morning," I feel like crawling under the floor (could I actually do that from under here?) and dying somewhere below this level. This girl really needs someone to poison her. Maybe then she'd be reborn with a personality.

"Good morning, Princess Lili! And how are you this day?" asks the queen happily. I think she gives Antonio a look, or maybe digs her elbow (I've heard that she has incredibly bony elbows), because he also says something, though I can tell that he doesn't really mean it that much. Well, he's always nice to most people, so he might mean it a bit, but not as much as he usually does.

"I'm doing very well this morning, thank you." the princess says in a lightly accented voice. I can tell just from how she talks that she's that meek, opinionless kind of girl that is, for some reason, extremely popular with most guys. I don't understand why they think that that's cool, because I've always liked the type of girl you can have a conversation with.

"Good, good! Well, I'll be leaving you two alone now~!" the queen says with a disgustingly girlish giggle that makes me want to throw up all over her. She waltzes from the room like some sort of brainless idiot who's name is Feliciano-because, sadly, my brother waltzes around a lot-leaving the two engaged people with an awkward silence that's just begging for me to break with, oh, I dunno, a sword stuck through the princess's heart? Yeah, sounds about right to me.

"So..." Antonio says awkwardly. "How, um, are you liking Supein?" He shifts from foot to foot and I can just tell that he's scratching his head in that way people do when they're in an awkward situation.

"Good, thank you." the princess says primly. "It's very... sunny."

"Is it?" Antonio asks confusedly.

"Compared to my kingdom."

"Oh." I thump my foot gently against the top of the bed so that Antonio knows that I want this bitch gone. "I, um, have to get dressed now." Antonio tells the princess.

"Oh. I thought that you were already. I will be leaving then." Her feet quickly leave the room, and then Antonio pushed away the blankets that have been partially covering my face for a while now.

"Hi!" he says happily. "You can get out now!"

I do so, grumbling and cursing underneath my breath. "That was the lamest thing that's ever happened to me." I tell him, pulling my shirt on over my head. I can feel his eyes on me and it makes me feel extremely smug. He definitely likes me better than the princess, that's for certain.

"Well, I'd better get to the kitchen's or something before someone notices that I'm not there to order them around," I tell him, turning to move to the door.

"See you tonight," he says after me. I shrug, but we both know that I'll be here once the sun sets.

***

I'm sitting in the kitchen looking dreamily into the fire and wondering when would be a good time to go up to Antonio's room when a knock comes from the door that leads outside. (Don't ask me why they have the kitchen practically outside; it makes no sense to me at all.) When I notice that no one else is going to check the door, I sigh and figure, well, I was getting overheated from the fire anyways, so I might as well get a breath of fresh air, right?

I meander on over, taking my goddamn sweet time, until I finally reach the door and open it.

"Hello?" I ask boredly, leaning in the doorway so that the man standing outside can't rush in and, I dunno, be shocked at the state of inactivity it's in.

"I-I-I-I-" he pants, breathing too hard to speak.

"Speak up, I can't hear you." I say with a smirk.

"I-I-I-"

"I-I-I get it," I mock. He glares at me, then leans over and focuses on trying to breathe. When he's finally done, he stands back up and says, "King Vash of Schwiiz is planning on attacking the castle at dawn tomorrow!" he finally gets out.

"I-I-I think you're lying." I tell him with a bored sigh.

The man rolls his eyes then pushes past me into the kitchen. "Let me speak to the king! Vash of Schwiiz is attacking!" He runs through the kitchen and into the castle beyond, screaming about Vash of Schwizz, which sounds like the sound a nobleman would make when they accidentally sneeze but try to hold it in. "Vashofschwizz! Oh, excuse me, what were we talking about?"

I stroll back into the kitchen like I own the place, which I don't, not yet, and then throw myself back into the chair in front of the fire so that I can continue being warm. Sure, I'm hindering the making of some sort of foodish stuff, but who even gives a fuck besides everyone besides me? No one, that's who.

After a while, the man walks back into the kitchen with a smug look on his face. "The king is sending out some cavalry to check on the situation." he tells me, chest puffed out proudly.

"Lovely," I say, absolutely uninterested.

"So, I was right, you were wrong!" he informs me.

"Good for you," The undercurrent of my words is something along the lines of "Zero. Interest." but he must be deaf because he doesn't hear it.

"And you thought you were such a big guy," he says smugly. "I just had an audience with the king."

"Yeah, well, I just slept with the prince, so fuck off." I say nonchalantly, kicking one of the logs into place. He just stares at me. "You're excused," I tell him grandly, waving my hand towards the door. He does so with a kind of shell-shocked expression, and I feel fairly certain that he's heading straight to the town so that he can help populate the first bar he can find. I shrug. Whatever.

"I wonder if Vashofschwiiz really is going to attack..." I say boredly, rubbing my chin where my non-beard is. "I'll go ask Tonio." I mean, if they do attack, I've heard that the prince is good with a sword, so his room might be the safest place to be. It's not that I like the guy or anything.

That would be crazy.

**A/N So, this ending was lame, but there will be not only excitement in the next chapter, but swords, fighting, and maybe even blood! Oh, and Tonio being badass, so you can survive this lame ending! :( So, review and tell me how big a douche I am for this lame ending! *gasp* I'm not a douche! What're you talking about? D: How rude!**

**Oh, and, do you feel that I use too many commas? Because I've just realized that I kind of use a lot... And I just need to know! *wails* **


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

Apparently, the news about Vash has gotten around, because a ton of other servants had the same idea that I did. They're all gathered outside Antonio's door, looking scared. I swagger through the hoard of them and, making sure to smirk at them all, open the door and walk in. Without even knocking. Oh, the glares they throw my way!

Antonio's sitting on the floor in his room, sharpening his sword, which looks very dramatic and fucking sexy, which is bad because I don't want to like the guy or anything. Kind of.

"So, is... Vash, attacking?" I ask hesitantly. I don't want to call him Vashofschwiiz like usual, because I think I'd burst into laughter and that's totally not called for in this serious situation.

"Yep!" he says, sounding as happy as always. Never mind. I might get away with a laugh-attack as long as I'm with him.

And then he turns serious as all fuck.

"Look, I want you to escape as soon as he shows up," he tells me. "There's a secret passageway-"

"Of course there is,"

"-right there, behind my wardrobe. Just sneak out through there, okay? It ends up in the forest behind the castle."

I shiver. "I don't want to be in the forest all alone! Haven't you heard the rumors?"

"What rumors?"

"The fuck, Tonio, you haven't even heard the rumors? Of, you know, bears hiding in the woods?"

"Bears?!" he asks, eyes widening in surprise. "I had no idea! You can't go out in the woods by yourself if there are bears out there!"

I roll my eyes. "That's what I was just saying! So you're going to have to come with me!"

"Me?" He says it like he's never heard the word before.

"No, the person behind you."

He looks behind him. "There's no one behind me," he informs me. Some major facepalming goes down, and then I tell him that I was being sarcastic. He then informs me that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. I reconsider staying here for protection.

"So, they're definitely attacking at dawn then?" I ask, changing the subject to the only thing I can think of besides, "Hey, there's a bed over there... wanna go lay on it? And maybe make out a little?"

He nods. "Yeah, probably!" And then the smile is back.

I groan. "Please tell me you're not looking forward to this..."

"Oh, not that much."

"'Not that much' means you're still looking forward to it."

His smile grows wider. "Heh, well, maybe just a little bit..."

"You're an idiot." I tell him.

When I wake up it's still dark and I can hear yelling coming from outside. It takes me a while to realize what's going on but when I do I jump out of bed. Antonio's already awake, pulling on his boots and grabbing his sword.

"Tonio!" I hiss at him. He looks over at me. "Don't leave me here!" I say, trying to sound threatening instead of holy-shit-I'm-gonna-die-fuckfuckfuck. Apparently he can hear that I'm scared, though, because he says he'll be right back before ignoring me and running outside. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

I head to the door and peek outside to find the hall full of cowering servants. For a moment I feel kind of sorry for them all, but then they all start muttering about how what if someone kills the princess just to be a bitch to Vash and I don't feel sorry for them anymore. I mean, what if Vash kills Antonio? Shouldn't that be more important to them? He is, after all, their Prince.

I close the door again and try not to freak out. When I lived in Itali, sometimes random soldiers from Austri and Hungar would attack small villages and take the Italia as slaves. That's what happened to my mother, so it always scared the shit out of me.

Voices come from outside. I don't pay attention because I'm too busy trying to convince my lungs to work. Feli usually had it harder than I did, and that's why I never wanted to leave him alone, at all. I hope no soldiers attacked again. Oh god, what if he was taken? What if soldiers came and he died of a panic attack? What if-

The door behind me opens and I lunge to the side, turning to see who it is. Standing there is Princess Lili, looking a lot younger and a lot more scared than I ever though she could. Now that I think about it, how old is she?

"Is anyone there?" she whispers, voice trembling. Wait, why is her voice trembling if it's her brother who's attacking?

"I am," I answer, kind of without thinking about it. She turns suddenly in surprise to look at me. Confusion flashes across her face.

"You're a servant, aren't you? I haven't met you before. How did you get in here?"

I shrug. "Anton- I mean, the prince let me in." Oh shit, she's totally gonna catch that slip-up now, isn't she?

Her eyes suddenly light up. "Oh, you're that boy the other servants told me about, who's good friends with the prince!" She says "good friends" like it should be sarcastic, but I know she's just repeating what was told to her.

"How old are you?" I ask, eyes narrowing suspiciously. She can't be more than fifteen or something.

"Me? Oh, I'm fourteen!" She smiles like it's the best thing in the world.

"How old is Antonio?" Oh, shit. I just called him Antonio. Well, whatever, she already knows that we're "good friends" so what does it matter?

"Um, twenty-one, I think."

"You're gonna marry a guy who's seven years older than you?!" I ask, surprised and kind of pissed off. I know I would never marry a girl who was seven years younger than me. (But then again, I've been making out with Antonio a lot lately, so maybe I should say guy?)

She pouts at me, then sits down on the floor in front of me. She's wearing a light pink nightgown that makes her look like she's twelve rather than fourteen. "Well, yeah, because I was kind of sick of being bossed around by my brother! Did you know he sent a list with me about the things I wasn't allowed to do? He spent at least a month working on that thing, making sure he got absolutely everything on there!" She crosses her arms in front of her chest. "He's such a pain! And so nosy! He'd never even let me be friends with the servants, not like here! Over here, you guys let me do whatever I want!" She seems extremely happy about this.

"Oh, I see."

"What's your name, by the way? I never found out what your name was, even though my servant friends told me a lot about you. They always told me you were mean though, and I don't get why they said that, because I think you're nice!" She smiles happily at me.

"You think I'm nice?" I snort. "Idiot. I'm not nice. I'm mean, like they said. And actually, just for saying that, I think I'll fire them."

She cockes her head to the side. "But you can't fire them! You're not even a royal!"

I smirk at her. "Honey, I've got Antonio wrapped around my little finger." To demonstrate, I twirl my little finger around in the air.

"Does that mean that you two are tied together by a red string of fate? Because the red string of fate ties people together by their little fingers, so if you're tied together by the red string of fate then you're probably wrapped around his little finger too. And what did you mean by that? Does that mean you can order him around? Can he order you around too? Wait, he can, you're his servant. Are you saying he's your servant too? Do you order him around-" A sudden thought occurs to her and she gasps. "You guys play games where you order each other around, don't you!" If I had been drinking anything, I would have sprayed it across the room. "One of the servants told me about games like that! He said we should play one sometime, but then his sister dragged him away and told me she was going to drown him in the moat, and I wasn't sure if she was kidding or not."

"Jeez, you talk about as much as my brother! Wait, no, actually, you're more like his apprentice. You don't have his talent for speaking so fast it actually hurts your eyes to watch his mouth move yet. Or his bad habit of pulling out a white flag and waving it around as he's talking. I have no idea why he always did that..."

"Ooh, you have a brother too? Is he younger or older than you? If he's older, does he boss you around like my brother bosses me around? If he's younger, do you boss him around like my brother bosses me around? Or is he your twin? Do you even know who's older? Do you look the same? Does he work here? If he doesn't, why not? Do you miss him? If he does, where does he work? I don't think I've seen him, unless he doesn't look like you-"

I dive towards her suddenly and cover her mouth with my hand, listening intently. "Do you hear that?" I whisper.

"Hear what?" she manages to mumble through my hand.

"It's sounds like soldiers marching-Oh shit! The Schwiiz! Antonio!" I jump away from her and hurry to the door but before I can open it, Antonio comes stumbling through.

"Romano? You're here?"

"Yeah, but-holy fuck, your arm! What happened?!" His arm is all bloody and he's holding onto it with his other arm like that will stop the bleeding.

"Doesn't matter. Quick, turn off the lights and head to that secret passageway I told you about."

"Secret passageway!" Lili suddenly squeaks. I jump at her voice, having forgotten that she was even there.

"Yes, secret passageway. We're going to escape through it."

"Can I come?" she asks, sounding like she's trying to be quiet but just can't stop the excitement from coming through.

Antonio shrugs. "Sure, whatever. Just you two go first. I'll go last to make sure any soldiers who show up can't follow us. Here," he walks over and scoots the wardrobe over, which seems a lot easier than I thought it would be, then lightly kicks the wall. A full-sized door opens up where the wardrobe used to be. "go through, quick!"

I grab Lili, wondering why the hell we're even bringing her since nothing will happen to her if she's caught, but then I realize our soldiers could use her as a hostage and I, for some reason, don't want that to happen to her. Maybe because I just realized she's only fourteen. I shove her through the passageway ahead of me, cursing the lack of light, then turn around and give Antonio a look.

"I'm not leaving without you, so don't try any noble shit." I tell him. He smiles bashfully as if that was totally what he was planning on doing, then follows me through the door, closing it behind him.

"It's dark in here!" Lili whispers. "I can't-ACK!" She suddenly falls down and because I'm holding onto her hand, I nearly fall with her. I pull her up and she clings to my arm. "S-stair! There's a stair right there!" I think she reaches out a foot to check for more stairs, because next thing I know she whispers, "More stairs! More stairs right here!" I reach out a hesitant foot and go down a step, grabbing onto Tonio's uninjured arm to steady myself and make sure he doesn't try the noble shit I just rightly accused him of.

And in this way, we proceed.

It takes us a long time but, finally, Antonio says that we're nearly there. As we're passing through what I assume are the kitchen walls, we hear some soldiers talking. We instantly freeze, worried that they might have heard us. From their conversation, I guess that they didn't, but their words still make my blood run cold anyways:

"Oh, have you heard? Apparently Austri's launching a full-blown attack on Itali." says one of them.

"About time!" another one grumps.

"They've been putting it off for ages!" agrees one.

I stop so suddenly in my tracks that Antonio crashes into me, sword clinking lightly against the stone walls around us in a way that would have given us away if the soldiers had been paying attention.

"What is it?" he just barely whispers against my ear in a way that would usually have sent shivers racing up and down my spine.

"Austri's attacking Itali..." I murmur. "My little brother's still in Itali..." I resist the urge to throw myself into his arms. "Fuck, what if my brother... what if they.. what if he's dea..." The words choke in my throat before I can finish speaking.

"Romano-" he starts, but I interrupt. "We have to go after him. I say firmly. "I can't just leave him to die, and I've got enough money to pay for him to get a pass out of Itali."

"I'll help!" Lili pipes up. After a slight hesitation, Tonio agrees. "Fine, we'll go to Itali. We'll have to travel through the border-woods though."

I shrug. "As long as we can get there before..." I don't finish my sentence. We all know what I'm thinking.

We continue down the stairs and finally make it to level ground, though we're still in the passageway.

"Are we underground?" Lili asks curiously.

"Yes," Tonio answers kindly. "This passageway leads through the castle and underground before coming out through a hill somewhere in the border-woods."

I can almost hear Lili's eyes widen with her next words. "But aren't the border-woods scary? Some of the servants told me they were scary! I don't think I want to go in them if they're scary..."

"Don't worry, I'll protect you." Antonio says reassuringly. I try not to mention bears, because I know that it would scare me even more than Lili, traveling empty-handed through the border-woods that are supposedly full of bears, with nothing but a sword, a fourteen-year-old girl, and an injured Antonio. Not to mention me. I'm nearly as useless as Lili, except that I can run pretty fast.

It takes a little while longer but we finally get out of that fucking tunnel and into daylight.

"What time do you suppose it is?" I ask, trying to figure out how long it will take us to reach Itali from here. Let's see, it took me about half a day to reach the first village I stopped at, and a day after that to reach a bigger city, and then another day after that to reach the big city that I first started working at, which would mean that-

"HEY! I FOUND SOME PEOPLE!" someone suddenly shouts. I whirl in the direction of the shout to find a huuuuuuge guy standing there, looking big a threatening. I cower closer to Antonio, who has got a sword, at the very least. Lili clutches onto my arm and looks frightened.

"THE AWESOME ME IS COMING!" someone else shouts, and I hear running footsteps. I move my foot around in my boot, wondering if I should pull out my little dagger or try to take them by surprise later. Antonio brandishes his sword, trying to look threatening even though he's bleeding even worse than before now.

"Don't come any closer!" he yells. Someone laughs.

"HERE I AM!" someone yells, and now I can see a figure darting through the trees. It has white hair and white skin and is wearing ragged blue clothes, as far as I can tell. "What have you caught?" Finally, it stops just in front of us and I see it's man unlike any other I've seen before. White-haired and pale-skinned with red eyes, wearing a falling-apart military uniform.

"H-hey!" Antonio says, sounding surprised. "You're wearing a Pruss military uniform!"

"Hey!" the albino says. "You look like a Supein nobleman!" Antonio looks like he's about to correct him when I interrupt.

"W-we're not Supien nobility," I stammer, trying to seem like I'm lying. "W-we're just servants escaping from a Schwiiz raid-"

"Yeah right!" the man crows, looking totally full of himself. "You're totally nobility! Man, am I awesome! Finally we found someone who was useful!" He signals and a bunch of other men in military dress pop out of the trees, grinning wickedly. "Take them to the base!"

**Oh my gosh, I just bothered to look at how many views this has and... and... *bursts into tears* IT HAS OVER TWO THOUSAND! *runs around sobbing* You guys are the fucking best! *does the happy dance* Oh, and, though Principe's gonna keep on going for a while now, my next bigger, longer fic is going to be either a Prussia x Austria fic or another Spain x Romano and I want to get the basics outlined, so I'm going to start a poll, though I don't really know how, so just, y'know, vote, I guess... **

**Lili turned out more like Feli or Feliks in this chapter, didn't she? o.O Oh well. Enjoy, and tune in next week-ish for another chappie! C:**

**(I was reading Hetalia shtick on the internet again, and I found something that said,_ Spamano: That's how pizza is made_. XD)**


	10. A Short and Annoying Intermission

**Sadly, this is not an update. This is A PETITION. I'm pretty sure it's about lemons. XD Well, I will honestly admit that I kind of like a nice lemon after a marathon of Korean Dramas and such, plus, it's like a strike. It means that I get to grab a wrench and laughingly throw it at someone. So this is why I will be posting this and then probably a chapter, maybe closer to January because it's Christmas and I've got a cousin coming over that I need to kidnap. SO DEAL! XD**

Greetings to the fine folk that moderate our site.

Myself, along with many, have been writing and posting on your fine site for years now, some of the better examples of up and coming writers out there are now suddenly finding some of the stories we've come to love at risk of being removed without the chance to even rectify our errors.

For some, that means the permanent loss of a story. While I don't have anything that I believe violates your terms of use, there are those out there that are never able to recover a story in its original form, this is something I find to be almost worthy of a legal action, as while we cannot claim ownership of a character, the stories are OURS and simply destroying them is something that is inexcusable.

It's quite easy to simply add an MA rating, additional filters or even a simple requirement for a free membership to read the stories presented here, and would cut down on hateful anonymous reviews and posts at the same time, so I have to question as to why such a thing, in all this time, simply wasn't added.

If you're worried about falsification of a registration then have an appropriate disclaimer and then there can be no dispute, you took your steps and the PARENTS didn't monitor their children, if that is even your concern. If it is more of a personal view or desire then please at least let people know and give them a chance to remove a story that you and yours find offensive, most people on the site are actually rather cordial when it comes to such requests.

While I cannot say for sure if this letter will even reach those that may be willing to listen, of if it's more akin to a wide spectrum purge in preparation for something bigger, please understand that you are going to be looseing a LARGE number of your writers, and thus your income from a lack of readers if there is not some level of action taken to help with this situation.

For those that may agree with this, please feel free to sign on and send this to the support server, maybe we can get some movement on this.

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Epic F. Awesomesauce


	11. Small Song (Not A Chappie!)

**A/N So, this is just a song I wrote that doesn't have anything to do with the story. SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING I SWEAR ON ED SHEERAN I AM WRITING THE NEXT CHAPTEEEEER!**

* * *

I, will stand outside your house

even if it rains

And I, will never leave until you deign to

speak with me

Oh I, will not just let you go like this,

And I, will stand outside-

* * *

I know I've made some mistakes and

I know I've done some wrong,

But darling I don't want this to end like this.

I know I'm done some shit, and I probably

made you cry

But darling I don't want this to end like this.

* * *

I know you don't believe me...

But I do have a kind streak...

And I know it won't make you feel better...

But I'm a stubborn asshole and I swear that I will

Stay outside until the bitter end.

* * *

**A/N Okay, so I'm reading this book called "Boy Meets Boy" by David Levithan, and it's SUPER GOOD. It's short- I'm halfway through and I only started a couple hours ago -but it's beautiful, and there's this one part where the boy, Paul, is trying to fix things up with another boy and he just screws things up, and then he just leaves. And I realized that... if I were him, I would, quite literally, sit outside that house, stewing in my stubborn anger, until the person I was waiting for deigned to speak to me, and then this song just came to me. Well, actually, the words "I'm a stubborn asshole and I'll stay outside" came to me, and then this song was born. By the way, it doesn't really have a melody- well, it does, but I won't remember it -so if you want to assign it a melody, I'm fine with that, but please, if you use it for anything, at least say that you got it from me, okay? I don't exactly want a song of mine stolen, because I WILL get pissed.**

**Anyways, that is all. *bows***


	12. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

"The base" is... is... it's... it's a hill. With a hole in it. No, I'm being seriously here. It's a medium-sized hill... with a hole in it. And all the Pruss ex-soldiers all walk on in like it's a fucking palace or something, dragging us with them. We've all stopped struggling by now. A while back I pretended I had to tie my shoelace- it's funny because my shoes don't have laces -and grabbed my knife and tried to stab the guy guarding me. I did manage to stab him too, but he just stood there and looked at the dagger- and it's not exactly small -protruding from his shoulder as if it was a fly, and then he laughed heartily, grabbed the knife and tucked it into his belt.

Now I know what everyone meant by fucking bears...

"Welcome to our awesome base!" the albino guy calls once we've all crawled through the small tunnel into the interior of the hill. It's only once we're inside that I realize how few Pruss there really are here. The albino and four others, to be exact, and as far as I can tell, the albino is their leader, which just shows how smart they all are. Definitely not smart enough to raid the castle of Supein, even if they pretended to be Schwiiz soldiers and invaded with them. Oh lord, and we were actually captured by these little fuckers? We're nearly as bad as they are-well, no, no one can be that bad...

"This place sucks," I tell them after looking around. It's a good thing there are only eight of us, otherwise I'm pretty sure we'd be forced to sit in each other's laps, and that would be extremely awkward.

"No it doesn't!" one of the Pruss says. "It's great! One of the greatest places ever!"

"It's not great!" someone else corrects. "It's AWESOME!" A cave-wide cheer goes up, which is surprisingly loud considering there are only five people cheering, and then somehow a tankard of beer appears in each of their hands and they proceed to get incredibly drunk while we just sit in the corner, tied up and lonely. And hungry. Fuck them! I settle down against the rough, uncomfortable dirt wall so that I can sulk. The loss of my small dagger pisses me off, and the fact that we've been captured and haven't escaped yet! Plus, I'm a bit worried about Antonio. His wound got bandaged a while back but he still looks pale and tired and has fallen asleep on my shoulder. And I'm NOT BOTHERED BY THIS, FUCK YOU ALL!

Lili looks absolutely astonished by all of this, and after a moment or so I realize that it's because she's never actually seen alcohol before... and she especially hasn't seen a bunch of random Pruss soldiers, who are supposed to be extinct, getting completely drunk. I wonder if I should cover her eyes or something, but then I grin evilly and decide I'll let her watch these guys drink themselves into oblivion while I let Antonio sleep on my shoulder- not that I like it or anything.

I change my mind when one guy attacks another and they start furiously making out, and trying to rip each other's clothes off. Sure, Lili looks totally fascinated by all of this, but... what if... they actually go at it? (My eyes' virginity!)

"Oi! Get out of here, stupid assholes!" I yell at them. Instantly, they stop their furious makeout session to look up at me accusingly, like I've just done something absolutely terrible. I hold my ground.

"You fucking heard me! I don't want to see you fucking bears fuck each other, not thank you! Get the fuck out!" I point to the little hole we all had to crawl through and smirk at them. "Go into the tunnel. It'll be good practice for later."

The room instantly bursts into raucous laughter, most of it emanating from the albino, who also shoos the other two out. They glare at me, but do as they're told, and I flick them off on the way out.

"I like you!" shouts the albino guy, and suddenly he's sitting right in front of me. I lean back a bit, because his breath smells like fucking beer- ew, why would you drink beer when there's a such thing as wine -and tell him to go fuck himself outside, or, if he's not man enough for that, to watch the other guys fuck each other. He bursts once more into uproarious laughter, then plants a hand on my shoulder and asks me to fuck him. I slap his hand away and kick him in the balls. Then he grabs me by the collar and reaches forwards like he's going to kiss me. I try as hard as I can to squirm away but the stupid dick is having none of it, and he's just about to get a kiss when Lili suddenly shoves him away dramatically, then jumps backwards as if she's expecting him to attack her. He just looks at her in shock, like he can't believe anyone would try to do that to him, and I turn to Antonio to make sure he's not dying in his sleep.

"Hey!" I yell at the albino. "What your goddamn name?!" Might as well get that over with, since I don't want to just call that guy "albino" for the rest of our captivity.

"Gilbert!" he says, instantly going back to his normal, cocky self. "But you can call me Awesome!"

"Che. Not gonna happen. Just go somewhere else so I don't have to look at your stupid face anymore," I say meanly. He deflates just a little, then he pops right back up again.

"I'll leave if you kiss me!" he states dramatically, striking a pose which I suppose is supposed to seem sexy or something. It's definitely not. I've see Antonio with his shirt of. There's not much sexier than that except perhaps Antonio with no clothes on at all... not that I would, em, like that or anything...

"I wouldn't kiss you for anything," I tell him snappishly.

He leans towards me with a coy smile, and I lean away with a grossed-out look. "Not even if I promised you... freedom?" he whispers breathily, leaning forward even more and kind of backing me into a corner. His face gets closer and closer and I get even more freaked out with every shortening of the gap.

"D-depends on what kind of kiss," I stammer, cursing myself inwardly.

"What do you mean? Isn't there only one kind of kiss?" he asks, brows furrowing in confusion. I roll my eyes.

"Um, no! There's tongue, and then there's no tongue! I will not kiss you with tongue if only I get to be free, so you're going to have to free Lili and Antonio as well if that's what you want."

Lili gasps and I turn to see that she's looking at me as if I've just done the most awful thing ever, and then I realize she thinks it would be like cheating on Antonio for me to kiss this stupid prick. It's not really, though, because it would be for his own good. I doubt that we can get proper treatment for his wounds here with all these fucking heathens.

"Don't worry about it, Lili." I say with a wave of my hand. "It doesn't mean anything except freedom from these asshats."

"I am not an asshat!" Gilbert says, insulted.

"Fine then. Asswipe." I say, looking mercilessly into his blood-red eyes, which are strangely attractive... well, no, not really, but they're a little weird.

"I'm not an asswipe either!" he insists.

"Fine then. Asshole."

"I'm not an- you know what, I'm just gonna leave it. So, I only get tongue if you all get to go free? So be it. You're all officially free. Now get over here and let me kiss you."

"Eeeewww..." I say. I didn't actually think that he'd say yes, and now I have to actually kiss him! Color me fucking disgusted! I lean slowly forward, lips curling in disgust, and press my lips against his. He leans closer to me and deepens the kiss. I try to pull away, but he's having none of it. He grabs my face and pulls me closer, and then suddenly he's jerked away from me. I quickly wipe my mouth on my sleeve and turn to see Antonio glaring at Gilbert with undisguised hate. Oh shit, Antonio had no idea what we were doing! Did he think we were actually kissing?! I mean, we were, but not in that way!

"A-Antonio-" I start, but before I can say anything he gets to his feet and quickly crawls out of the stupid little cave. Lili follows him, looking over her shoulder at me like she's saying, "I told you this would happen."

"Oh shit," I mumble, starting to rush after them. Gilbert catches my wrist, though, stopping me. I turn to glare at him.

"Be happy!" he says with a smirk. "The Awesome Me is coming with you!"

"What?" I yell, jerking my arm away from him. "There is no way in hell you are coming!" I quickly exit the cave, hearing his footsteps follow me and ignoring them. I have to find Antonio and tell him what was actually going on because, well, I don't want him to think that I was kissing Gilbert because I like that stupid idiot, and no other reason!

"Antonio!" I start to call, but then I hear unpleasant noises coming from the bushes to my left and remember that- oh, gross, those two Pruss soldiers I kicked out! They're right over there! I quickly move to my left to try to get away from those flat out awkward noises, and crash right into Gilbert. I whirl around and shove him away.

"Would you leave me alone?!" I ask frustratedly. "I'm looking for Antonio, dammit!"

"Well then, I'll help you look." he half-whines. "I'm awesome at everything, so I'm sure I'll find him for you,"

"No!" I start walking fast into the forest, away from the two Pruss and their awkward noises. I just hope Antonio went this way as well. How did he manage to get so far ahead of me? Fuck! If only we were still back at the castle then I could just order someone else to find him! Ugh, speaking of the castle, I'm fucking hungry... What I would do for some pasta right about now...

"Antonio!" I shout, cupping my hands around my mouth. I don't know if that will help, but it's worth a shot, right? "Antonio! Lili! Where are you?" I try my best to ignore the footsteps behind me that signal that Gilbert is still following me, fuck him.

"Where the fuck are you!" I shout, waving my hands around frustratedly. I sit down on the ground with a humph and try not to cry. Crying is what Feli does, not me. I haven't cried for a long, long time, and I'm not about to change that! Fuck it all!

Gilbert sits down next to me and says nothing for a while, which is good, because if he speaks I will bite him.

"You know how Pruss went to war with Austri?" he says suddenly. I tense up, ready to attack, but decide to at least let him finish his story before I bite him.

"Sure, sure, whatever," I prompt.

"I was one of the soldiers, ja?"

"Ja- I mean, yeah?"

He smirks at me before continuing. "Well, I met this guy. He was an Austri soldier, in name, but really he was a musician." His voice takes on a tone I've only heard from my brother before, and that's only when he's speaking of pasta.

"He was perfect. You should have seen him. He had the prettiest skin, and dark hair and these gorgeous purple eyes. He kinda looked down on everybody else, but I still loved him."

I sigh. "Your point, please?"

"Well, one night I walked in and found him having sex with another man." I gape at him, mostly because I don't understand how he can say that so offhandedly.

"What did you do?" I ask, getting more into the story than I would like.

"Well, I did what anyone would do," he says.

Kill them both? I think.

"I went and had some epic sex with his sister, Elizaveta."

My mouth falls open and I realize how much it would hurt me if Antonio had revenge-sex with mio fratellino. Mostly it'd hurt, though, because poor fratello is an innocent virgin and that would just be really awful for him.

"It really was epic, though. I'm not sure how she managed to get laid at all with an overprotective brother like that, but she knew some stuff about it!"

This is starting to get uncomfortably detailed.

"And then I left the village and joined the Pruss army so that I could try to kill Roddy the next time I saw him."

"You hold grudges like a girl," I tell him flat-out.

He sneers at me. "At least I don't look like one." he says.

"I don't look like a girl!" I shout.

"I was talking about your boyfriend," he smirks.

"Excuse me?" I say in my most dangerous voice. "What did you just say, you maggot-ridden piece of toad-wart?"

He looks at me like he can't believe that I've just said something that the "awesome" him doesn't understand.

"Tonio does NOT look like a girl!" I state primly. "He looks like one of the hottest beings I've ever seen in my life, and he's DEFINITELY male."

"If you say so..." he says doubtfully. "But my Awesome is telling me otherwise."

"Well, your 'Awesome' can go shove itself up your ass for all I care."

He grins at me and slings an arm around my shoulder. "Y'know, I think we're going to be great friends!"

* * *

**A/N Sorry for the later-than-Judgement-Day update! *sobs in corner* Yeah, sorry, I've been taken by a new story of mine (one I haven't posted- I know, I'm a jerk) and, well, I just wasn't really FEELING this chapter, y'know? I know, bad excuse. WELL SORRY! I'll just blame it all on my new baby cousin. She was born one day after my birthday, not ON my birthday, so it sent me into a horrible bout of depression! (Just kidding. But that's the story I will stick with to save face.)**

**Anyways, dunno when the next update will be, so... just... uh, check your alerts, I guess? And yeah. Bye.**


End file.
